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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27706894">Seamless</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetshootingstars/pseuds/sweetshootingstars'>sweetshootingstars</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Haikyuu!!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Fluff, Gen, just hoshiumi gushing over pianist!reader, kourai like liiiiikes you, timeskip!things</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 14:40:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,382</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27706894</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetshootingstars/pseuds/sweetshootingstars</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Kourai isn't the best with his words, but he thinks of you more than you'll ever know.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hoshiumi Kourai &amp; Reader, Hoshiumi Kourai/Reader, hoshiumi kourai - Relationship</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Seamless</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Concert halls are stuffy, but it’s in moments like these where Hoshiumi is grateful for the length of his legs and how they fit neatly underneath the seat in front of his. </p>
<p>For some reason, he had always assumed that being in your mid-twenties meant getting used to suits and formalities. That when you turn 25, it imparts onto you some sort of wisdom of how to do Adult Things like close a deal on an apartment (check), buy a way too expensive suit (navy Ermenegildo Zegna, expensive as fuck, check), pay your bills (surprisingly, check) and navigate a relationship (he’s almost there, he thinks). </p>
<p>He instead learns that having volleyball money can get you through most things, but it won’t get you through the relationship bit. After a particularly nasty screaming match last week (it was mainly you screaming at him, to be fair. And he had kind of deserved it), he realizes that he must put on his big man pants and be a good boyfriend. And here he is! Being a fantastic boyfriend! Like the kinds in movies! Expensive suit, hair slicked ever so slightly to the side, a bouquet of calla lilies on his lap. He knew lilies were your favourite. </p>
<p>Hoshiumi felt as if he was being a good boyfriend. Watching his partner do what they apparently do best- play the piano for a bunch of silent people in a stuffy concert hall. </p>
<p>He scoffs internally. Your fingers flitting across the keys playing Debussy’s Arabesque No. 1 for a silent, enraptured crowd wasn’t even the most impressive thing you had done. He feels a small swell of pride- only he got to see you in your moments of piano-induced ardor in the comforts of your shared home. Relentless repetitions of arpeggios, practicing how smoothly you could reach a <em>fermata</em>, the constant <em>shifting shifting</em> of your creaky piano’s old pedals. The countless times where your body moves in time with your <em>rubato</em>. At the end of particularly expressive pieces, Hoshiumi enjoys the small moments where you appear to be frozen, hunched over the keys in climax. He gets to straighten your back right up with his hands on your waist and shoulders, applying the softest amount of care and pressure. </p>
<p>The real concerts always happened at home. He never sat and watched you anymore, because your music was everywhere. It was in the lilting tones of your speech, how you’d time your footsteps to whatever you were listening to, the rhythm of your breathing. He had long grown used to coming home to the ever-present notes of the piano, lingering in the air long after you had stopped playing. Even during a screaming match, your voice reaching <em>fortissimo</em> and retorts coming out in short <em>staccato</em> bursts, he couldn’t help but think that you spoke in staves. </p>
<p>The fight you’d had with him regarded his attendance at your performances. You would make as much of an effort to go to his games, so why couldn’t he go to your recitals? </p>
<p>
  <em>“You know I don’t ask you for much, Kourai. I go to so many of your games, even when they’re far away. So why can’t you come to any of my-“</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“You know how my schedule is, [Y/N]. I don’t have the time to just sit around-“</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Is that what my shows are to you? <strong>Just sitting around?</strong>”</em>
</p>
<p>He didn’t have the words or the tact to tell you that he did find your performances a little boring, but not for the reasons you thought. Hoshiumi didn’t have the words to tell you that he’d memorized all of your pieces to heart, or that he’d watched you at home enough times to know when your body would lurch forward at what times during your pieces. Or how long it would take for you to start playing when you’d sit down on your bench, or what pieces make you cry in sadness, fear, or frustration. He thought that he’d shown you enough times- how much you captured his attention. And how more than anything, how enraptured he was with the way you’d return to the keys, the same way he’d return to the court. How your skill, your excellence, your repetition had become second nature.</p>
<p>You really were the second half of his soul. He grappled every day with how to show you- and while he accepted that there would be times where his thoughts and feelings wouldn’t be communicated to you well, he knew he deserved a bit of an earful for it from time to time. You were right- you never asked him for much affection. Just for him to be there. </p>
<p>He had always been there, whether you realized it or not. Around the corner of your living room, in the kitchen, humming a piece of yours, the sounds of your playing breaking through the pitter-patter of the water coming down through the shower. He didn’t want to share the music he got to hear with you and you only. </p>
<p>Hirugami Sachirou had often told him to think a little before he spoke, and he thought that he’d learn how to do that by the time he was 25. But instead, here he was, cold water from the lilies sticking to the warmth of his palms, hoping that he could show you what he really thought of your life’s work. Instead of telling you that you were far more impressive in his eyes when you made mistakes and tried hard to improve, instead of performing something nearly flawless. He didn’t have the words for that today. Plus, it wasn’t like he could just leave now. </p>
<p>His ears twitch when he hears you stumble ever so slightly on the final page. Yet you continue even more gracefully than before (if that was even possible), and he doubts that anyone else in this stuffy, stuffy concert hall even noticed. If his heart could swell for you even more, then it would. </p>
<p>His hands grip this bouquet of lilies a little tighter as you end, your back straightening at the end of your piece as if his hands were there to guide you back up. The hall erupts into applause, and Hoshiumi stands. </p>
<p>He weaves through the seats, barely maneuvering through the purses and feet in his path as his eyes focused on only you. You, having finished an imperfect run of Debussy’s Arabesque No.1. To him, you couldn’t have played it more perfectly. You curtsy and bow your head with a smile, and he swears that you had reached into his chest and taken his heart right then and there. </p>
<p>Hoshiumi reaches the edge of the stage, stopping in front of you. The smile he had on since you made your mistake grows even wider at your bewildered expression, his limbs extending an armful of white lilies towards you. Your eyes grow misty. As you drop to your knees, he hoists himself up to sit upon the stage, ushering the lilies into your arms as you begin to cry. </p>
<p>“When….how-“</p>
<p>“I’ve been here. <strong>Always</strong>.”</p>
<p>“Kourai-“</p>
<p>He vaguely registers the sounds of hoots and hollers from the crowd, the cooing of strangers as he gathers you into his chest. Your sobs muffled by his suit. He loves you more than you ever know, and he hopes that you’ll one day be able to read the bars and pages in which his feelings are inscribed. He hopes that you know that you’re the reason his blood moves, that you’re the reason he now thinks of each step in a run-up to a spike as a <em>staccato</em>, and that there’s nothing that makes him happier than watching you make a mistake and picking back up right where you started. </p>
<p>The next morning you play <em>Schlummerlied</em>, with Kourai’s arms around you, sitting between his legs on your already narrow piano bench. His head resting on your shoulder, lips ghosting over your neck. He is not forthcoming with his words, he is not <em>fortissimo</em> with his adoration. But the notes you play ring in the air with more brilliance than before, and it is then that you start to realize what you look like in his eyes. And that he has always, always been there. </p>
<p>
  <em>Legato. Connected, seamless, tied together. Always. </em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm also on tumblr! @sweetshootingstars. Blog is rather empty, but I hope you stick around for more of my musings and streams-of-consciousnes-that-somehow-end-up-as-hq-fics. :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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